Carve Like a Master
Very quickly after getting serious about woodworking I realized, if I wanted to make more than simple projects with square or tapered legs, I needed to develop my skills in two major areas beyond [...]
Design in Practice: Rooms With a View
In researching my next topic for this blog series, I was cruising the Winterthur web site. One of the things I noticed, as I sought various examples of a specific furniture form, was some great [...]
Furniture Details: Here’s What’s New
In Friday’s “Furniture Details” post I tossed out a photo of a Newport dressing table (or lowboy if you prefer), but shot from below. The idea was to get you looking at not only [...]
Furniture Details: What’s New?
In order to know, and understand, how things were made in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries you’ve got to spend a lot of time on the floor (no Bender jokes, please). Looking at pieces from the [...]
An 18th Century Rarity in Use
John Sindelar, owner of the famous Sindelar Tool Museum, posted a link today from the European Woodworking Show that showed a cornice, or crown moulding, plane in action. I thought it was worth [...]
Furniture Details: Decorative Mouldings With Bite
When most people think about adding something to enhance crown mouldings on pieces of furniture, they turn instantly to dentil moulding. It’s easy to make because of the repetitive cuts, [...]
Design in Practice: Stylin’ Finis?
In the last installment I got to Chippendale furniture but I didn’t cover all the changes that took place. The cabriole leg was actually on its way out in terms of fashion (in England, at [...]
Furniture Details: Shoes
In my last “Design in Practice” post I talked about how, as furniture transitioned from William & Mary to Queen Anne, the bottom back rail moved down and became the shoe on top of [...]
New Jet $50 Guarantee
If you’ve ever been frustrated by heading to your local tool dealer to get a hands-on look at the latest new tool reviewed in Popular Woodworking Magazine (or in one of our online reviews) [...]
Period Trippin’
I got a request recently in the comments section of my “Design in Practice:Stylin’ Too” post (read it here) about museums to visit for those interested in period furniture from [...]
Furniture Details: Philly Explained
A couple of weeks ago I posted why Philly chairs were just better (read it by clicking here). In the comments pmac mentioned including a SketchUp drawing in future posts to illustrate the joinery [...]
Design in Practice: Stylin’ Too
Last week I started down the slippery slope of defining some of the differences between the various periods of furniture (read it here). This week, I’m just jumping off the cliff. Even if [...]
